Magnus Chase and the Extremely Long Train Ride
by ReneDaly
Summary: What were to happen when Magnus was stuck on a three-day train ride with a certain Alex Fierro. An AU where Magnus and Alex are strangers to each other and are both catching the cross-country ride from LA to Boston. Sorry, I suck at descriptions.


The sound was almost deafening. The blow of the wind nearly made him fall over. This is easily one of the places Magnus Chase loathes. The train station. Of course, he didn't want to be here. His adoptive parents from Boston asked him to visit them since he hasn't seen them in nearly a year after moving to LA for college. Of course, simply catching a plane would be too expensive for a college student who is currently living in a dorm room and surviving on ramen for food. So, instead, he needed to take a cross-country train. More specifically, a train which would take 3 days to reach the east coast. His suitcase was propped up against him. It was a carriage train so there would be reclinable chairs as well as a bathroom. Emphasis on 'a' instead of plurals. He questioned if he'll even be able to take a quick bathroom break, not even to change, but to use the urinal because based on how many people are currently standing at the loading station of his train, he probably won't even get a chance.

In the not so far distance, he could hear a trumpeting horn that was becoming increasingly louder. Finally, his train had arrived. Even though it was going to be a full 3 days, he brought enough books as well as his laptop (for studying) to keep him occupied. Another gust of wind blew past, this time, the train stopped in front. The automatic doors opened and people started piling on. He felt trap in a herd. Unable for anyone to move other than the direction the group of people were moving in. But, this was disproved as a petite person started weaving through. Elegant He thought, that was until the same person crashed into him at the entry of the train. Luckily the entry was wide, so they didn't cause that much blockage, but they did earn quite a few glares in their direction.

"I am so, so sorry, I wasn't watching where I was heading," Magnus rambled, quickly scavenging for his things in the onslaught of feet.

"That's cool. No biggie," The person shrugged off. He barely got a look at them before they started walking off to a seat. All he could see was the back of the head, which was covered in a forest green mop of hair. Green. Not a colour you see every day for hair. Much more extravagant than his normal blonde locks. He luckily collected all of his things before anyone could complain to the staff about a stupid boy laying on the floor, and made his way to a seat. He sat himself down towards to back, which led to another carriage. He wasn't sure what the carriage was for, whether it was more seats or a food compartment. The window was fogged up. He relaxed down onto the chair and pulled his travel bag up onto the seat with him, his suitcase resting on the table between the two seats that were adjacent to each other. He couldn't leave it there, food was meant to be put there and eaten on that same bench, so he had to move it to the overhead compartment. Even though he just became comfortable, he hopped up again and squished himself and his luggage between the stampede of people. Blocking the way again, Magnus. He placed his suitcase in the overhead compartment and sat back down in his seat, his head resting on his bag. He didn't have to worry about tickets. They have already been sorted out before the train even arrived, so he had all the time in the world to catch up on (hopefully) uninterrupted sleep. But, because luck isn't on his side, he felt the weight shift. They weren't sitting next to him, there was no room and he would've felt them, but, he guessed they sat across from him, in the other seat that was connected to the table. He knew there were other people on the train, obviously, but there were quite a lot of seats, so he wasn't expecting someone to seat on his bench-thing. He opened his eyes, only to be met with a front view of the mysterious green-haired person from before. He had a proper look this time, and oh boy, did he look. Probably a lot more than a normal amount, but there was so much to look at. His eyes were instantly drawn to theirs. The person's eyes were so much more interesting. Magnus's were a stormy grey colour, with specks of black through them. The stranger's though, theirs were heterochromic, one of his eyes a warm, melted amber colour, the other was a cool chocolate brown. After their eyes, he was drawn to their nose. Not just their nose though, their cheeks, neck and shoulders. They were all covered in freckles. Which contrasted nicely with the person's, what he could assume, latino skin tone. Their clothes were probably the most shocking. You could see a simple white blouse, but over that was a pink and green checkered sweater vest. Pink and green. Not a colour normally seen together. He met back up to the eyes.

"Sorry about intruding on your little naptime," they said, chuckling. "I was kicked out of my seat because the lady who sat down next to me was quote, unquote "uncomfortable with my crazy hair". Since you seemed pretty chill with me before, decided I would accompany you on this rather long train ride," They explained. Their voice was pretty middle range, so even though Magnus has held a conversation for a couple of seconds and stared for a little longer, it wasn't obvious on what gender exactly the person in front of him was. They stared at him as if reading his mind. A hand was stuck out in front of him. Magnus sat up from his resting position and shook it.

"Alex Fierro, she and her today," She introduced.

"Magnus Chase, he and him always. What's with the today thing?" He asked. He wasn't sure whether it would be rude or not to ask, but most of the time, he thought out loud, which resulted in numerous embarrassing situations.

"Genderfluid. Which means I change gender. Obviously, I don't change sex, I just change what I feel like. Like, say, tomorrow I'll feel male, so I'll say I'm male. But today, I'm rather feminine, so I'm a female," she explained. He has met some gender fluid people before. When he was homeless, before his adoptive parents, Hearth and Blitz, took him in, he met many people at homeless shelters who were transgender or genderfluid. People who didn't always match whatever they were born with. So, this wasn't a new concept to him. Although, most people who he met at the homeless shelters, rarely matched what gender they said they were. They said because their parents refused to let them grow their hair out or cut it short, so they normally represented what they were born as what their parents wanted them to be. However, this was not the case for the person who was sitting in front of him. Before, he could barely tell the difference on what gender she looked like she was a bit of both. But now, after she introduced herself as female, he could clearly see she was female. Barely anything masculine about her. And he's sure that the opposite would've happened if she was feeling masculine today instead. Brains really like to mess with you.

"You're okay with that right?" She asked, concern converging her face, "because I just got comfortable." This time it was Magnus's turn to laugh.

"Yeah, that's fine," He replied.

"Good," She replied, leaning back. "So, what do you plan to do for this long train ride?"

"Read and study," He answered.

"Readings pretty good, depending on what you're reading, but whatcha studying? You seem like a college kid, or a really tall high school, or a really short adult."

"College kid. Studying at UCLA for general practioning,"

"Ah, a med student. Well, I too go to college in LA, however, I'm getting a fine arts degree at (art college)," she explained.

"Fine arts degree?" Magnus asked, genially interested.

"Yeah, I mainly do stuff like pottery, but I'm not crap with a brush, so I applied, and I graduate next year."

"I graduate in four," He said with a gloomy expression.

"Four years? Geez. For fine arts, it takes about four years to complete. I am now in my third year."

"I'm a third year in college too, just I need 7 years before I can actually move forward," He explained.

"So you're..."

"Twenty-one."

"Ditto."

"Woo, legal adults!" Magnus said with a fake enthusiastic chant.

"I can finally legally drink alcohol in public," Alex celebrated.

Magnus laughed before pointing to a sign at the end of the carriage:

'NO ALCOHOL TO BE CONSUMED ON THIS TRAIN'

Alex turned around and let out an exaggerated sigh.

"Well, there goes my plans for the next three days," She joked. Magnus laughed out loud again. He was planning on spending the whole trip with noise cancelling headphones on with either a book in hand or laptop in his face, only pausing to eat, drink and go to the bathroom. In short, doing absolutely nothing. However, Alex showed up and he began to think Maybe this trip won't seem so boring after.

"What's wrong?" She asked. He gave a confused glance. "You're smiling," She explained.

"Oh," He replied before quickly wiping the smile off his face. "Just dozing off."

"Didn't know I was that boring."

"You aren't," He quickly defended, "Just thinking about something." She laughed and shook her head. Her laugh was sweet and made his insides melt. He had a sudden urge to keep making her laugh. He was about to speak, but the conductor interrupted.

"Good evening passengers. We are just leaving LA as I speak. Food and drinks will be passed around shortly for afternoon tea. Thank you," He said, before hanging up the load speaker.

"I've never tried train food before," Magnus admitted. "Is it like aeroplane food?" He asked, scrunching up his nose at the sour thought.

"Nah, aeroplane food only tastes bad because of the altitude. The foods pretty good. Better than hospital food," she joked. He relaxed again, previously stressed about his favourite thing, food, being ruined and rotten for a whole 3 days.

Magnus leant his head against the train window. Normally, in movies, they seem to be relaxed, however, this felt similar to putting his head in a blender. He quickly picked up his head, with a dissatisfied facial expression. He could hear Alex laughing at the expression he made.

"Not as relaxing as it seems in the movies," He chuckled.

Alex bent down to the bag that was at her feet and pulled out a laptop. She stood up and stood at the edge of Magnus's seat. He understood what she was trying to do, and moved his bag to the floor and moved over to make way for the green haired girl. She sat down and opened the laptop up, logged in, and clicked on a document. It had a full page of writing.

"This was my end of year essay," She introduced.

"How did you go?"

"A-," She said proudly. "The minus was for my conclusion, plus I went over the word limit," She laughed.

"Why are you showing me this?" He asked. He wasn't trying to be rude again, just interested.

"Thanks for your interest in my work, but I wanted you to read for your opinion," She explained.

"I'm a med student," He said, "I have no experience in fine arts what so ever."

"Yeah, but you're doing medicine, so you must be pretty smart."

"Eh."

Alex laughed again. He did, honestly, love making her laugh. It sounded like music to his ears. Like an addiction. He needed to keep making her laugh in order to still be sane.

"I'll read it," He said, pulling to laptop to in front of him. He read through it and was pretty shocked. He though fine arts was more about the physical work like actually making the art, instead, the essay in front of him was very in depth It was about how the Renaissance shaped modern art and it looked as complicated as something he would write.

"Wow, this is really good," He said. He could see her face light up. Her different coloured eyes sparkled and a smile appeared on her face. "Do you always write like this, or is this just for assignments?"

"I wrote more formally here, but I write this much outside of college," she explained.

"Really?" He asked, surprised. "You should make another career out of this," He suggested.

"Pottery and writing," She thought out loud.

"Both artsy I guess."

Again came that laugh. He couldn't help but smile. He could hear the food trolley coming down the aisle. One of the wheels was broken so it was constantly making a loud clanging sound. It was stopping at every seat, the woman running it bending over and sometimes handing back a drink or snack. Money didn't seem to be passed to the trolley, so it was safe to assume that it was complimentary of the train. It finally reached the pair.

"Hi!" A high-pitched female voice chirped. It was quite she didn't want to be there and sounded pretty fake, but everyone needs to get money in some shape or form. "Could I get you two anything?"

"Uh, just some water please," Alex asked.

"Same."

The lady bent around to the other side of the trolley and pulled up two tiny bottles of water. She handed them to them and continued moving, opening the door to the other carriage and disappeared into the room.

"So," Alex said. "What are we gonna do for another three days?" She asked.

Magnus honestly didn't have a response. He just shrugged his shoulders.

The polite small talk went about the two for another couple hours. Showing each other their work for college, sharing funny stories and other seemingly meaningless discussions. Of course, Magnus didn't see it that way. He held onto all the little facts about her like her sister who she was visiting in Boston, her bullying in high school, her lack of parents. All of it, he hung on to. Soon, the afternoon glare was shining through the window. Alex leant over Magnus and closed the curtains, stopping the blinding rays from interrupting their discussion. It was only about six when the dinner was being passed around. It wasn't bad like Alex said, it tasted pretty normal.

The sun quickly dipped below the horizon and stars started appearing in the sky. They re-opened the curtains and watched the city lights flash by in a blur. They had no idea where they were, but they couldn't care less. Alex let out a deep yawn.

"Mmm, it is pretty late. About ten I think," Magnus said. Alex hopped up and went back over to her original side. He nearly forgot about the fact that next to him isn't Alex's actual seat. He just grew used to having her next to him. She pulled a pillow out from below her seat. They were told by a passing staff member that there were pillows under the seat and blankets in the overhead compartment. It didn't feel that cold tonight, so they were set with pillows. The seat reclined backwards so it was nearly horizontal. Magnus did the same, grabbing a pillow and laid back.

"G'night Maggie," She said.

He laughed at the nickname.

"Night Alex," He muttered. It was soft but loud enough for Alex to hear. His eyes drifted down and he fell into a somewhat comfortable sleep. Beds aren't always comfortable.


End file.
